The nonlinear impact of women’s descriptive representation: an empirical study on the ratification of women rights treaties

Does the women’s descriptive representation have nonlinear impacts on women’s substantive representation? This article contributes to the literature on women in politics by opening the academic black box of the nonlinear impacts of women’s descriptive representation with the time-series cross-national data on the ratification of women’s international treaties of 117 countries from 1960 to 2016. Our study demonstrates that there is a nonlinear relationship between the improvement of women’s descriptive representation in parliaments and the number of women’s international treaties ratified. To be specific, we find that the increase in the percentage of women in parliaments leads countries to ratify women’s international treaties. Interestingly, the link between the percentage of female legislators and the number of women’s international treaties ratified turns into a negative relationship when the percentage reaches around 30%. We also find that the impact of women’s descriptive representation is only valid in democratic countries.